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Capital murder trial continues in Palo Pinto

On Wednesday, jurors heard second-day testimony in the trial of Justin Michael Lowe, 25, of Mineral Wells, accused of capital murder in the death of his 2-year-old son.

Jason Blaine Lowe died July 7, 2012 in a Fort Worth hospice facility from a serious head injury sustained that April while in his father’s care.

The trial is taking place before 29th District Court Judge Michael Moore.

According to the Mineral Wells Index, Lowe was taking care of Jason and his older brother, Justin Michael Lowe II, in their home on N.W. 4th Ave. in Mineral Wells, when on April 18, 2012, according to testimony by Mineral Wells Police Sgt. Darby Thomas, Lowe heard a thud in the boy’s room.

Thomas, who was a detective at the time, told jurors Lowe said he was watching TV in an adjacent bedroom when he heard the noise and went into his sons’ bedroom to find Jason laying on the bedroom floor, unresponsive. Lowe was the only adult at the home at the time.

Lowe drove his son to the emergency room of Palo Pinto General Hospital, where hospital personnel immediately rushed the child to the main trauma room for treatment, said District Attorney Michael Burns in his opening statements to the jury on Tuesday.

Within an hour of treatment, including a CT Scan, hospital emergency personnel determined the subdural hematoma Jason Lowe had suffered warranted transport by air ambulance to Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, Burns told jurors.

The severity of the injury, which was life-threatening, led hospital personnel, according to witness testimony, also to call police to investigate the possibility of child abuse.

Dr. Susan Rowe, a forensic pathologist with the Tarrant County Medical Examiners Office, confirmed in her review of more than 3,400 pages of medical records from PPGH and Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, through an autopsy on July 9, 2012, two day’s after Jason’s death, that the cause of death was traumatic brain injury and the manner of death was homicide.

Thomas said he was concerned about Lowe’s story because the injury did not fit with what was said, but said Lowe cooperated with police, including allowing them to make a thorough search of the home.